Desert Paradise

by BTM

Mon, 31 July 2017

Behnaz Sanjana took a long drive from the city lights to this idyllic resort restaurant set in the wilderness for a fantastic start to the weekend.

The approach to Keizo, the Oriental dining outlet nestled deep within the tranquility of the Al Areen Palace Hotel & Spa, itself is a romantic ride. Winding through some camera-worthy landscaping on a golf cart brought us to a man-made moat, which girdled the grand structure of the eatery.

My partner and I were greeted by the welcoming restaurant supervisor, Rio, who ushered us to our table.

Keizo’s ambience is as impressive as its menu, which offers a wide range of Asian fusion cuisine. Japanese, Thai, Malaysian, Chinese and Indonesian dishes fill the pages, and the knowledgeable Rio was able to guide us through the various courses.

We started with ebi tempura. Ebi is a Japanese style of ‘butterflying’ shrimp; ours was coated in a generous, crisp, fried batter. The calamari tempura took me back to the afternoon I spent lounging around at a beach shack in Bali – nowhere else have I had squid that has such perfect bite inside a crunchy golden exterior. The spicy mayonnaise and sweet chilli dips were ideal complements.

The sushi that followed was fresh, light and pleasant on the palate. The Crazy Kani Maki Roll borrowed a subtle sweetness from the crab and avocado, while the Spider Maki Roll was an interesting combination of prawn, sticky rice and seaweed – all flavoured expertly.

We also shared a chicken tom yum soup, enjoying the slight twinge of heat that the brown broth brought to the taste buds. We worked our way through the tender chicken pieces, lime leaves, mushrooms, red chillies, lemongrass and galangal to slurp up the very last bits of this tangy-spicy concoction.

After a brief breather, we went with the suggested mains – grilled lobster for me and prawn in hot garlic sauce for my partner. All my fears of struggling with a crustacean on my plate were dispelled as soon as the course reached us – the lobster was neatly de-shelled, with its dressed head sitting pretty beside it. The succulent white meat and the accompanying grilled vegetables were coated in a creamy teriyaki sauce that did not overpower the authentic tastes of the dish.

My companion’s plate was a bright one – stir-fried prawns in a smooth and vibrant red, sweet chilli gravy. It gave off just the right hint of pungency to offset the mildness of the seafood and the nuttiness of the steamed rice that accompanied it.

All this delectable food had reduced our ravaging appetite to a craving sweet tooth, and, needless to say, Keizo did not disappoint. The mango cheesecake stood on a deliciously dense biscuit base, and was generously topped with small cubes of fresh mango and chopped mint leaves. I must say the pairing was a match made in heaven – for both the gustatory and the olfactory senses.

The lemongrass crème brûlée was probably one of the very few that I have ever wanted to polish off. Maybe it was the understated flavour and fragrance of the herb emanating from below the glassy sheet of torched sugar that did the trick.

We left the grandeur of the location, making a mental note to return and relive this gastronomic experience under a gazebo on the picturesque outdoor terrace of the restaurant. Now that would be something else to write home about.

Terms of use

Welcome to Bahrain This Month. The following are the terms of use ("Terms") that govern your use of the site and applications where this appears (collectively, the "Site"). Our policies, including Purchase, Refunds Policy, and rules or guidelines that may be applicable to particular offers or features on the Site are incorporated into these Terms. By using our site, you expressly agree to the terms mentioned, which shall be updated any time, from time to time. Any change made will be effective immediately. By continuing to use the site after the changes as seen on the "Last Updated" stamp in the page, you agree to the changes.

By using this site, you affirm you are above the age of 18. We strongly encourage parents to let children use the site under their guidance only and to monitor their use as well.

Account

You may browse the Site without registering for an account. You will be required to register for an account to use certain features of the Site, such as purchasing a ticket. Your account username may not include the name of another person with the intent to impersonate that person, or be offensive, vulgar or obscene. Your account username and password are personal to you. You will be responsible for the confidentiality and use of your username and password, and for all activities (including purchases) that are conducted through your account. You may not transfer or sell access to your account. We will not be liable for any harm related to disclosure of your username or password or the use by anyone else of your username or password. You may not use another user's account without that user's permission. You will immediately notify us if you discover any unauthorized use of your account or other account-related security breach. We may require you to change your username and/or password if we believe your account is no longer secure or if we receive a complaint that your username violates someone else's rights. You will have no ownership in your account or your username. We may refuse registration, cancel an account or deny access to the Site for any reason.

Code of Conduct

You agree that you will comply with all applicable laws, rules and regulations, and that you will not:

Restrict or inhibit any other person from using the Site;

Use the Site for any unlawful purpose;

Express or imply that any statements you make are endorsed by us, without our prior written consent;

Impersonate any person or entity, whether actual or fictitious, including any employee or representative of our company;

Submit (a) any content or information that is unlawful, fraudulent, libelous, defamatory, or otherwise objectionable, or infringes our or any third party's intellectual property or other rights; any non-public information about companies without authorization; or any advertisements, solicitations, chain letters, pyramid schemes, surveys, contests, investment opportunities or other unsolicited commercial communication;

Submit, or provide links to, any postings containing material that could be considered harmful, obscene, pornographic, sexually explicit, indecent, lewd, violent, abusive, profane, insulting, threatening, harassing, hateful or otherwise objectionable, includes the image or likeness of individuals under 18 years of age, encourages or otherwise depicts or glamorizes drug use (including alcohol and cigarettes), characterizes violence as acceptable, glamorous or desirable, or contains any personal contact information or other personal information identifying any third party;

Submit, or provide links to, any postings containing material that harasses, victimizes, degrades, or intimidates an individual or group of individuals on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, age, or disability;

Engage in spamming or flooding;

Harvest or collect information about Site users;

Order a number of tickets for an event that exceeds the stated limit for that event;

Use any password or code to participate in a presale or other offer on the Site if you did not receive the password or code from us or if you violate the terms of the presale or offer; or

Use any area of the Site for commercial purposes, such as to conduct sales of tickets, products or services.

Ownership of Content and Grant of Conditional License

The Site and all data, text, designs, pages, print screens, images, artwork, photographs, audio and video clips, and HTML code, source code, or software that resides or is viewable or otherwise discoverable on the Site, and all tickets obtained from the Site, (collectively, the "Content") are owned by us or our licensors. We own a copyright in the Site and Content. We may change the Content and features of the Site at any time.

Do not

Submit any software or other materials that contain any viruses, worms, Trojan horses, defects, or other items of a destructive nature;

Manipulate identifiers, including by forging headers, in order to disguise the origin of any posting that you submit;

"Frame" or "mirror" any part of the Site;

Modify, adapt, sub-license, translate, sell, reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble any portion of the Site or otherwise attempt to derive any source code or underlying ideas or algorithms of any part of the Content;

Remove any copyright, trademark or other proprietary rights notices contained on the Site;

Use any robot, spider, offline reader, site search/retrieval application or other manual or automatic device, tool, or process to retrieve, index, data mine or in any way reproduce or circumvent the navigational structure or presentation of the Content or the Site, including with respect to any CAPTCHA displayed on the Site. Operators of public search engines may use spiders to copy materials from the Site for the sole purpose ofand solely to the extent necessary for creating publicly available searchable indices of the materials, but not caches or archives of such materials. We may revoke this exception at any time and require removal of archived materials gathered in the past;

Use any automated software or computer system to search for, reserve, buy or otherwise obtain tickets.

Make more than 800 reserve requests on the Site in any 24-hour period, whether alone or with a group of individuals;

Reproduce, modify, display, publicly perform, distribute or create derivative works of the Site or the Content;

Reproduce or scan tickets in a format or medium different from that provided by the Site;

Decode, decrypt, modify, or reverse engineer any tickets or underlying algorithms or barcodes used on or in production of tickets or the Site;

Bahrain This Month reserves the right to change the terms, conditions and notices under which the services are offered through the portal, including but not limited to the charges for the services provided through the portal. The User shall be responsible for regularly reviewing these terms and conditions.

Privacy Policy

Users should be assured that all their information is safe and is not under any circumstanced used by us. We only monitor this information to graph trends and consumers interests so we can serve you better. We do not share any information with third parties.

We share information with vendors who help us manage our online registration process or who fulfill your purchases. We also share information with our business partners, those who provide or sponsor an event, or who operates a venue where we hold events. Our partners use the information we give them as described in their privacy policies. You should read those policies to learn how they treat your information.

We may share information if we think we have to in order to comply with the law or to protect ourselves. For example, we will share information to respond to a court order or subpoena. We may also share it if a government agency or investigatory body requests. Or, we might also share information when we are investigating potential fraud. This might include fraud we think has happened during a promotion.

We use standard security measures.

We have security measures in place to protect your information. The standard security measures we use will depend on the type of information collected. However, the Internet is not 100% secure. We cannot promise that your use of our sites will be completely safe. We encourage you to use caution when using the Internet. This includes not sharing your passwords. If you think that an unauthorized account has been created using your name, contact us at the address below. We have security measures in place to protect your information. The standard security measures we use will depend on the type of information collected. However, the Internet is not 100% secure. We cannot promise that your use of our sites will be completely safe. We encourage you to use caution when using the Internet. This includes not sharing your passwords. If you think that an unauthorized account has been created using your name, contact us at the address below.